First, with the closure, with the social isolation, the people who have experienced some trauma, all the work that they have been doing in terms of trying to connect, to trust, to be open, re-experience the others, the quarantine has had a real impact, so that sometimes they have ended up, locked in their houses, both in physical isolation from others, also stopping any contact with others. What follows is disconnecting from oneself and I think that is the part that becomes retraumatizing, that if you are disconnected from the present, it is much easier to return to the past and the other part of returning to the past is that there is a, what we call , “A phenomenon of state-dependent memories”. So if you have had a traumatic experience that has involved certain modalities or sensory experiences, and then you find yourself in a similar situation again, they will reactivate and trigger those previous traumatic experiences.
That is one reason why the pandemic has more impact on mental health than people who have experienced previous trauma.
“I really don’t know what it means to overcome, if to overcome is to forget, if to overcome is to be who I was again… I will never return to who I was, and that is ok. Is not about to overcome, it is about learning to live with what happened!” María Belón
Anita Chukaleska, Psychologist, Gestalt Psychotherapist 27.11.2020